Hacktivism.

        On this episode, of Circled "A" Radio the host chickpea talks to Mike, one of the participant organisers of the UK Hacktionlab Network about their event, BarnCamp 2013; a rural technical skillsharing weekend open to people of all abilities and backgrounds focusing on hacktivism (hacking + activism), with workshops, entertainment, politics, and fun in the sun taking place on Friday 7th to Sunday 9th June. HacktionLab is UK tech-activist run project that aims to create regular convergence spaces where activists interested and/or working in the areas of alternative media, renewable energy, on-line video distribution, free software or any other form of activism that utilises technology can get together and plan how to better harness the technology (or not) to support grass roots social movements. Mike and chickpea discuss the importance of understanding the political aspects of using technologies in pursuit of freedom. This episode also features music recorded at Barncamp 2010 open-mic sessions.

ENJOY:

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Steel Doors Of Prison.

       Today's poem is from a book called Poetry Like Bread, the title is taken from a line of poetry, "poetry should be like bread, for everybody" this is also my sentiments. This particular poem is by Jimmy Santiago Baca, abandoned at 2 brought up by his Grandmother for a while and eventually put in an orphanage. He was part of the street gangs in New Mexico and ended up in Prison, where he taught himself to read and write and started to write poetry. As they say, the rest is history.

Steel Doors Of Prison.

The big compound gates close the world off,

Lock with a thunderous thud and clunk,

While bits of dust scatter into your lungs,

Breathing in the first stark glance

Of prison cellblocks behind the great wall,

Breathing in the emptiness, the darkness

As you walk with an easy step on the cold sidewalk.

Then another door locks behind you,

This door is your cell door. A set of bars,

Paint scraped, still as cobras in gray skins,

Wrapping around your heart little by little:

The ones you love cannot be touched,

Christmas, Easter, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day,

All seen from these bars, celebrated

With a deep labouring yearning from within,

While the cobras slowly wind and choke

Your mind, your heart, your spirit,

You hear nothing but the steel jaws close,

Slowly swallowing you.....

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Leila Berg.

      From Anarchist Studies Network,  for those who might be down London way, around the end of May:

Dear all,

       I've been asked to circulate information about an event to explore Leila Berg's contribution to radical education and the lives of children, on 22nd May in London (there's an obituary at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/apr/23/leila-berg). Berg identified as an anarchist in her later decades and championed anarchist educational approaches and experiments. The information is as follows:

Leila Berg (1917-2012): writer, rebel, radical educator.
Date: 22nd May 2013
Time: 7pm-8.30pm
Place: Housmans Bookshop, 5 Caledonian Road, London, N1 9DX
Entry is £3, redeemable against any purchase.

     An event to explore Leila Berg's contribution to radical education and the lives of children.
      Michael Fielding (professor at the Institute of Education, London) will chair a panel of speakers to introduce Berg's contribution to radical education and the lives of children: Emily Charkin (historian at the Institute of Education, London) on Berg's position within the radical education tradition of the 1960s and 70s, Wendy Jones (writer and friend of Berg) on Berg's writing for and with children and Lynn Brady (one of the founder members of the Risinghill Research group) on Berg's account of the radical school, Risinghill. There will then be time for questions and discussion about Berg's signficance for contemporary debates.

 

Ruth

Dept. Politics, History and International Relations,

Loughborough University,

LE11 3TU

 

Recent publications: Continuum Companion to Anarchism

Libertarian Socialism: Politics in Black and Red

 

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The Kremlin In George Square.

       After ten years of volunteers, lots of them kids, transforming a piece of waste ground into a garden for all, including the kids, Glasgow City Council has decided, against the wishes of the locals, to destroy this project that adds immensely to the community. They need you support, ten years is a lot of time and effort to be wiped-out by the council.

 



http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/hands-off-the-childrens-garden/??

Help us save the Children's Garden from a Council Takeover

Glasgow City Council have just written to us demanding that by the end of April only 4 days away: we chop down our willow tunnel. That we remove all fruit trees (despite them just coming into blossom)

That Land Services are going to take over two of our lovely raised beds -
despite us having paid for them and all the plants in them.

Please contact your councillor, MSP, newspaper, and anyone else you can
think of - and please please - sign this petition, and get your friends to
sign it. And please come up to the garden this weekend to show your support.



Come and visit the garden this weekend - and show your support

John Hancox
Tel 0778 606 3918

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The Warmth Of a Dream.

    We live in a cruel system and today's poem asks the question, Who knows the past of a stranger, who knows the future of a friend.

The Warmth Of a Dream.

He lay in a dark doorway, dreamed of home,

night frost locked his joints

morning rain chilled the marrow of his bone.

In the dream there was a sister,

a pram in a garden, a crowd of youngsters

who called him mister, a time of little pain.

Are these youngster the same young men, who

now laugh at him, throw beer cans,

piss on him as he lies drunk in some dark lane?

When was that first step down this slippery slope,

when was the first step to no forgiveness.

No will to rise to beg for food,

numbness kills the pain.

The dream brings a warmth that feels good,

dark fog shades out consciousness,

an ambulance carries off a body washed in rain.

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Snoopers' Charter,

     An Appeal from Liberty to try to stop one of Big Brother's tentacles from reaching further into our private affairs:

E-mail your MP       Read our Blog     The Home Secretary wants to store your online data, turning you from citizen to suspect. The Snoopers’ Charter (Communications Data Bill) has been met with criticism at every turn but the Home Office is battling to get it into the Queen’s Speech. The Government is far from unified around the Bill and today it has been reported that the Liberal Democrats may block the bill because of the impacts it would have to our privacy.      Now is our opportunity to stop this Bill. Will you help us by e-mailing your MP?       The Communications Data Bill will impact everyone’s lives and only together can we stop it. It is vital that you tell your MP you will not stand for this threat to our civil liberties. If thousands of Liberty members and supporters write to their MPs we can stop the Snoopers’ Charter.       We can’t leave this up to chance. Please visit our website now to e-mail your MP.      When the Coalition Government was formed, it promised "to end the storage of internet and email records without good reason". Let’s remind them of this.

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A Scarred Heart.

     Long poems, short poems, what does it matter as long as you say what you feel. Today's poem is a short one verse.

A Scarred Heart.

I tossed a heart at life

saw it dance in the morning sun

watched it through a field of nettles run

felt it warmed by passion's breath

heard it crack between love's teeth

was proud, as it turned its back on fear

sighed so when it it near' drowned in an anguished tear;

scarred and bleeding it came back, aged like wine,

with a quiet pride I said, "This is mine".

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Big Brother In The Classroom.

       We all know of them, we get taught about them in school, we sometimes use their "gifts". I'm talking about those millionaire/billionaire philanthropists, who after years of screwing people to make their obscene fortunes, decide to hand some back in the way of a "gift". We are supposed to love them and feel grateful as they drop a library here, a park there, or what ever takes their fancy. One that is in the news quite a lot recently is super billionaire Bill Gates. Just the same as the rest, having made his pile from trying to create a monopoly, he now sees himself a some sort of God figure and believes he has the right to interfere in our lives in an array of ventures. His latest venture is to throw $5 billion at a scheme to put cameras in every classroom in America. Just to improve the teaching of course. No way will the system be used by the state, education authorities or the police or any other body, for any other purpose than improving the kids education!!! Big business and the state will jump at the idea, big business because it will love to get its hands on that $5 billion, and there is a lot of money to be made implementing and maintaining the system, and the state which will be delighted at another section of society having there every move monitored, and have the corporate world do it for them. Of course it will be deemed such a success by the powers that be, that it will be rolled out across the Western world. Big Brother is growing bigger.

      Why is it that those people who manage to screw the public and make a fortune, feel it gives them the knowledge, ability, and the right, to jump into areas of other people's lives, that they have neither the knowledge, ability nor right to do so. Simply it is because in this type of society, money equates with power, and power over-rides knowledge, ability and right. Ah, that's capitalism for you.

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They're Only Here To Help You!!

    A mortgage is for life, but your house might not be!! Enjoy.

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The March Of The Right.

      We have had the rise of fascism in Greece, we have had the removal of an elected government in Italy and had it replaced by a "technocrat" from the Troika. So it goes on, country after country moves further to the right. We in the UK, are facing the same lunge to the right, though our mob are a little more subtle. They slide legislation through under the guise of efficiency and give it innocent sounding names, this latest one is "reforming the legal aid legislation", it should read, "destroying the legal aid legislation".

This from A World To Win:

     Since April 1, legal aid has no longer been available for cases involving divorce, child custody, clinical negligence, welfare, employment, immigration, housing, debt, benefit and education. A number of advice centres have closed as a result. An estimated 600,000 people will lose access to advice and legal representation.

Read the full article HERE:

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I'm Sick.

       April 23rd. another day another poem, another one from the 80's but times haven't changed that much have they?

I'm Sick.

I'm sick of missing the theatre

when "The greatest show on earth",

arrives in town.

Sick of living through the winter

with the heating turned down.

I'm sick of seeing my kids

miss out on this and that.

Sick of living with dampness

in a run down council flat.

I'm sick of having beans on toast

every other day.

Sick of TV shows extolling

a healthy lifestyle way.

I'm sick of wearing the same old jacket

hail, rain, or shine.

Sick of being told

the problem's really mine.

I'm sick of being a statistic

in some ministerial debate.

Sick of quietly letting

them decide my fate.

I'm sick of being offered work

if I accept a lower wage.

Sick of trying to control

this bubbling pent-up rage.

I'm sick ------------

I'm not,   really sick,

though I soon will be,

I'm just obliged to live

on benefit.

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Shot At Dawn.

     I work with a group who are archiving as much non-party political, material on grassroots struggle, associated with Glasgow/Clydeside area, the group is called Spirit of Revolt. Have a look, I'm sure you will find something of interest. You may also feel you have a collection of your own that you would like to donate to the group to be archived. All that we collect will eventually be archived and made freely available to the interested public.

      Being a member of the group has its rewards as you get first glimpse of very interesting material that perhaps hasn't seen the light of day for many a year. Just recently we were given a small collection, mainly on the peace movement and one particular document vividly reminded to me of the cruelty and barbaric nature of the state, especially in time of war. I think the document speaks loudly for itself.

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Bullshit Economics.

      Well they came in swing their hatchet, cut, cut, cut, pain is necessary to get “the economy” going again. Of course the cuts and the pain were not for them, no, that part was for you and I the ordinary people. Millionaire Osborne, took the economic reins two and a half years ago with his pompous know-all statement that the UK's triple "A" credit rating was the hallmark of success and he would make sure we kept that rating. His next guarantee he made was his cut, slash and burn policies would lead to the UK deficit being reduced and the land would be covered by lovely green shoots. Well what a load of cobblers all that has been, the UK triple "A" rating has been downgraded by two of the three rating agencies and the figures out this week show public sector borrowing in March this year was £10.6 billion, up from £9.7 billion the previous March. So it looks like the first estimate of net borrowing in 2012/13 is similar to last year's £120 billion.

      Two and a half years of austerity, a nice way of saying poverty, heaped on a people for the prize of a deteriorating society. All the Cameron/Osborne bullshit exposed for what it is. I have never swallowed this crap about the “deficit reduction” would lead to growth, to the financial Mafia it was irrelevant whither it did or didn't. The plan was a little more multifaceted than that. “Deficit reduction” was plain and simple, a transferring of public wealth to the coffers of the financial Mafia to make up for their gambling losses, a way of legitimising the selling off all public assets to the corporate world, and of course to get wages down and create a UK sweatshop economy to compete with their Eastern sweatshop competitors. So it is working well at the moment.

     This is capitalism, all this chatter about deficit reduction, credit ratings and growth, is not with your welfare in mind, it's all about corporate profits, you and I are incidental to these calculations. We are an inconvenience to the corporate world, they need us to buy their crap, and sadly we need to be fed, and that means paying us, that in turn hits their profits. They will of course, always struggle to keep that cost down and they have this system of so called “representative democracy” which puts the stamp of legitimacy on policies to keep us in our place and to protect and enhance their profit margins. Until we change that system, we will continue to be screwed. They need us, we don't need them.

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The Lonely Wynd.

      Today's poem was written shortly after the death of my mother, so is a very personal out pouring, but I'm sure lots of you have been there.

The Lonely Wynd,

At the bed, death's waiting room,

the family muster,

with empty words, wrapped in thoughts of death,

gaily chatter.

Outside, hungry birds feed, sing and fly,

their chirpy songs seem to call her death a lie,

but summer's sun

reaching through the window pane

sadly smiles,

knowing they'll never meet again.

I wonder,

in coma wrapped, what were your thoughts.

Pleasure,

looking back at what used to be?

Pride,

at how, to this life happiness you brought?

Perhaps it was a welcome rest from pain,

a just pause in your long struggle;

alas, too late, this enigma with me remains.

So rest, in that rest, peace be your gain,

for you dear mother, an end to trouble,

as love's boundless force could not break

death's firm grasp upon your heart,

passionless devouring cancer

unmoved by prayer on our part,

took your hand along that lonely wynd,

death took time

fused the moment on our mind.

In the midst of family,

alone dear mother you had to die. 

Boston Military Lock-down.

      The Boston bombing was a very serious affair and must have been frightening for those runners and spectators near the scene. However, what was also frightening to see, was how tenuous is the citizen's hold on the right to freedom of movement. In one swift movement an entire city was shut down, businesses closed, Amtrak and Boston public transport to New York shut down, and people warned to stay inside and lock their doors. The city was swarming with what looked like the cast of Star Wars. A million people willingly locked down, why, because a teenager was on the run. Obama, of course said all the right things to make the citizens of Boston compliant, he praised them for being resolute, brave and not cowed, when in fact they were all sitting at home behind locked doors, leaving the streets to the state's muscle. It would seem that when push comes to shove, even that slim semblance of Madame Democracy, can so very easily be locked down. The scenes beamed across the world were a perfect portrayal of a warrior nation moving into overkill, a perfect example of how to lock-down a city when desired. The manhunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was a massive exercise in over reaction, creating a state of siege on the city of Boston, imposed by a military state. In spite of this, it was not the professional state muscle men that found the teenager, it was one of Boston's citizens.

       I can't remember who said it but this was a perfect example, “What's the difference between the state and a terrorist? The terrorist is the one with the small bomb.” Killing innocent people is always unacceptable, but let's not forget, the state is the biggest killer of innocent people on the planet.

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Profit From People's Misfortunes.

      There is one thing that most people in the UK are sure of, is that at no time did they vote for the privatisation of The National Health Service. Yet we are well on the way to having a privatised health system in this country. Bit by devious bit, the market is being slotted in to all aspects of the NHS. One sector of the health service that has seen a dramatic rise in health service for profit, is the ambulance service. This service is an integral and necessary part of the NHS, but to the corporate world it is just another money spinner. The recent rise in the use of private ambulance companies within the NHS is quite staggering, it is big money. During the year 2010/11 in Yorkshire the NHS spent approximately £500,000, on private ambulance services, for the year 2012/13 that had risen to £1.8m. an increase of £1.3m. London showed an even more dramatic increase in NHS money going into the coffers of the corporate ambulance business, growing from approximately £400,000 in 2010/11, to £4.2m. in 2012/13. Other areas are seeing the same sort of increases, that's a lot of NHS money being creamed off for a bunch of well-heeled shareholders, and at the same time jeopardising a core service at the NHS. Of course as we all know that when it comes to the corporate world, profit comes first, safety and standards come somewhere down the line. There has already been complaints about lives being put at risk by this creeping privatisation, and the body set up to check those standards is not quite doing its bit, "Last year the Care Quality Commission (CQC) released figures revealing that of the 245 private ambulance companies that it has registered, only 54 have been inspected."

       Of course we mustn't forget that £5 billion, "money from ill health", giant BUPA and the five private-sector hospital operators – General Healthcare Group, Nuffield Health Hospitals, Ramsay Health Care UK, Spire Healthcare and HCA, running alongside the NHS bleeding its resource for the benefit of those well-heeled shareholders. Is this what you voted for, is this what you want? No matter who you vote for, this is what your going to get, after all it was Labour that introduced the private ambulance service to the NHS, The millionaire ConDems are just oiling the wheels.

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The High And Mighty.

   You could say that today's poem follows on from the previous post.

The High And Mighty.

Politicians, high priests of the holy church 

of greed,

yours are the crimes from which the many

bleed.

See, vice and corruption make their

stand,

and with brutal tyranny, walk hand

in hand:

your arrogant minds, lost in ambition's

cloud,

oblivious to the suffering of the humble

crowd.

When poverty's knife makes our people

bleed,

your cancerous power is all you ever

feed,

holding high some ego-inflating avaricious

plan

that divides, soon pits man against

man.

Now anguish and war mark your mad

career,

covering our world in the brume of

fear,

then shedding youth's blood by cruel

deceit,

with spurious pomp, lay the guilt at

another's feet.

As we fall heir to a plundered

land,

you tyrannts walk in manner

grand,

what must we do to make you 

yield,

to see our children play in a bloodless

field?

Smash and crush your dark nefarious

power,

allowing love and peace to freely

flower. 

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There Are No Natural Catastrophes.

      We all know that there is something wrong with the way we live, the difference is in how do we fix it. Day by day it becomes more obvious that time is running out, when do we act.

This from Tabula Rosa:

There are no natural catastrophes.

    Thousands and thousands dead or missing, millions evacuated. So far. Entire cities swept away. As if it weren’t an earthquake that struck Japan, but a nuclear bomb. As if it weren’t a tsunami that laid waste to houses, but a war. In fact, this is so. It’s just that the enemies who struck so hard are not the earth and the sea.
These are not at all tools of revenge for a nature that we are accustomed to view as hostile. The war that has been going on now for centuries is not on between humanity and the natural environment, as many would like to make us believe so as to ensure our discipline. We are our own enemy. We are the war. Humanity is the war. Nature is only its main battlefield.
     We have caused floods by transforming the atmospheric climate with our industrial activities. We have broken down riverbanks by cementing their beds and deforesting their shores. We have made bridges collapse by building them with scrap material so we could win contracts. We have swept away entire villages by building houses in areas at risk. We have contaminated the planet by building nuclear power plants. We have bred jackals by aiming for profit in every circumstance. We have neglected taking precautionary measures against such events, concerned only with opening new shopping malls, new railroad and subway lines, new stadiums. We have allowed all this to happen and repeat itself by delegating to others the decisions that concern our lives.
     And now, after we have devastated the world in order to move faster, to eat faster, to work faster, to live faster, we still dare to complain when we discover that we also die faster? There are no natural catastrophes, there are only social catastrophes. If we don’t want to go on being victims of unforeseen earthquakes, unusual floods, unknown viruses and so much else, the only thing left for us to do is to act against the real enemy: our way of life, our values, our habits, our culture, our indifference.
     It isn’t against nature that we need to urgently declare war, but against this society and all its institutions. If we are not capable of inventing another existence and of fighting to realize it, we must prepare to die in what others have arranged and imposed. And to die in silence, as we have live.

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The Wreckers.

      I think it was Bertrand Russell who said,  "The one thing I regret is my politeness, it stifled my honesty." not verbatim, but near enough. People's politeness often makes them refrain from voicing the truth about those well mannered, nodding donkey's who create so many problems in society. With this in mind, here is today's poem.

The Wreckers.

The well mannered, who

with proper legislation,

legitimise insanety,

through the proper legal channels,

justify injustice,

with the proper religious devotion,

ethnic cleanse,

with the proper academic praise,

magnify the trivia,

with the proper pomp and ceremony,

glorify the mediocre,

with the proper charitable phrase,

ignore the poverty,

are the wreckers, who

with the proper cultured dignity,

create, havoc in their wake.

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The World's Bully.

      The Boston Bombing focuses the mind on what kind of society is America. There is justified horror at this event, but there seems to be a total unawareness of the fact that in countries across the world, this is a regular occurrence and in lots of cases, a direct result of American action.  In the "Land of the Free" it seems to be one killing after another, and it is not a new phenomenon, it goes back a long way. Individuals indulging in mass shootings are more or less a fairly regular occurrence. America, as a state, is undoubtedly the most violent nation on the planet, it is responsible for millions of deaths across the globe. It devastated the whole of South America for generations, you could say that Cuba probably got off lightly as it was not bombed into oblivion.  A state that perpetrates such  continuous violence, on such a wide scale and manages to sell this to its population as the best response, must expect to see that same attitude permeate through the whole of society. This is not denying that there are millions of Americans vehemently opposed the this war-tuned state, but sadly there are millions more who worship that state and see what it does, as always, the only and best response to problems. So why shouldn't they sort out their problems in a similar manner?

This from Straphanger's guide to the Galaxy: 

      "------This isn't to justify any of this violence. But in a nation that routinely uses violence to settle disputes, is it any wonder that citizens and non-citizens choose that same route? When our President doesn't like what's going on in North Korea he doesn't reach out to discuss the issue, he flies nuclear capable bombers over the peninsula.----"

Read the full article HERE:

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